


Tutelage

by borlaaq



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Ambition: Heart's Desire (Fallen London), Gen, Heart's Desire Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borlaaq/pseuds/borlaaq
Summary: You are still learning how to be a Master. You have a long way to go, but Mr Wines has contagious enthusiasm.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27





	Tutelage

Mr Wines takes care of most of your lectures. 

You can tell them apart more easily now. Before – when you were still all human and not this slowly forming amalgam – you had to depend on their mannerisms, their style of dress, and their eye color when you could, in order to tell one Master from another. Now, you can pick out differences in their voices, see the hint of fur color beneath their cowls. You are starting to be able to smell their different, unique scents.

And so it's strange to you that so often you find Wines there to teach you. At first you think simply it's because Wines is the only one willing, but as more time passes you begin to realize that it enjoys giving you lessons. It doesn't seem irritable like the others and encourages you to ask questions. There is a shine in its eyes when you catch on and when you connect something. 

It's tired too. "Cards, my friend, we are so very ready for you to be prepared to take on more burdens already." It confines in you one day, in a rare lapse of professionalism. You've learned Wines takes on more than it can handle, that it likes to play the leader of the Masters. The others don't seem to mind shirking their responsibilities onto it and Wines picks them up without a single complaint. 

(You don't remember much of the actual procedures, but once you overheard Apples and Veils talking while they worked together to coax your bones to grow. "Wines can be so much like–" "Quiet. Don't you dare speak of this now."

There are still some secrets kept from you but you are smart enough to know Wines wasn't always the leader it is now. It's trying to fill someone's shoes and perhaps some of the other Masters hate it for that.)

You pay close attention to Wines' lessons, closer than the others, because its enthusiasm is contagious. It gets excited to tell you of celestial politics. That seems to be it's favorite subject. It is more willing to let something slip about the Judgements and their Light, about the different ways they rule. Once you even hear something about the Courtesy. 

It tells you of the White and the Azure. Its voice goes hushed when it speaks of the Red and the Gold. When it speaks of Sol there's something you can't place, an emotion you don't have yet. It picks its words about the Halved carefully (it cannot tell  _ stories _ , after all) and hesitates only once when you ask about the King Who Speaks.

It talks with a sense of longing, different from the longing of Veils (longing for hunts and light), or Pages (longing for work finished and knowledge unknown), or Hearts (longing for experiments and answers). When you ask Wines if it wants to go home, it falls silent. Its eyes are far away, the blue shimmer dimming. 

"No. We want the Bazaar to succeed. Her message, it is important. We wish–" here, its voice cracks and it takes a drink of its wine, "We wish to prove not everyone who has failed once will fail again." It is looking past you. "And she will succeed. Or we will perish down here in the dark with her." 

Why do you try so hard, you ask. Wines is the only one with such conviction. Stones is stubborn, Spices is distant, Fires and Iron actively sabotage the Bazaar's efforts. Wines knows all this. 

It smiles at you, sadly. "We're the only one left who can. We gave our word to a friend once." 

It blows out the candle on the table and stands. "You may go for today." 


End file.
